Brilliance and the absurd collide in this comic television masterpiece from 2004. Thanks to the blend of bad wigs, cheap sets and a cast that steadfastly refuses to break character, it’s one that is unlikely to date.

Based on a 2000 Perrier-award nominated Edinburgh Fringe show Garth Marenghi’s Fright Night (the follow-up won the award the following year) it was created by Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd) and Richard Holness (Life’s Too Short) and follows hubristic horror writer Garth Marenghi and his futile efforts to get his medical horror series - ‘‘the most significant televisual series since Quantum Leap’’ - aired on TV.

This consistently hilarious series has documentary-style talking heads in the form of Marenghi (Holness), his publisher Todd Learner (Ayoade) and Todd Rivers (Matt Berry, also from The IT Crowd) as well as scenes from the hospital-on-the-hellmouth series, with those characters playing the roles of bedevilled medical staff. This is where the B-movie horror effects really kick in, with exploding heads that look like someone splattered a summer pudding.

The absurdity continues in the special features, which include commentary on all six episodes by Holness, Ayoade and Berry in character as Marenghi, Learner and Rivers.